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Scientists in China have identified an influenza virus that they say has the potential to spread around the world, sickening and killing people whose immune systems have never faced a threat like it. The H7N9 flu emerged in humans in eastern China in February 2013, sickening 133 people and killing about a third of them before winding down in May. It seemed that the outbreak was over, but it reemerged in October 2013 and has been spreading steadily since. “H7N9 viruses should be considered as a major candidate to emerge as a pandemic strain in humans,” they wrote in a study published Wednesday by the journal Nature. According to the World Health Organization, 571...

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